Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Hey readers have I got something for you tonight. Single and dating world is currently crickets? Marriage is dull and lost a little spark? Sick of stalking reading stories about Katy Perry. Then Skipah has an answer for you. Jules Strawberry is running a contest on her blog for a free autographed copy of her book Jules Rules. Her stories of the best and worst dates she’s ever had. Since she is currently single she might want to look in the mirror, but hey I don’t judge. It’s was originally filed under fiction with Amazon, but Jules finally got the editing department to believe these kind of whacky dates do actually happen and it’s currently somewhere between number 15 and 2,135,454 on the Amazon best sellers list. Her goal is to become a millionaire she will settle for a large, ahem “venti” from Starbucks with any windfall that comes her way.

Ok Mrs. Strawberry I have lived up to my end of the losing bet. Never bet against someone in Trivia Crack that has a little more culture than you. Damned Arts & Literature category! Let this be an open challenge to all bloggers! Skipah’s Realm will take on all comers in a game of Trivia Crack, best two out of three wins and one or the other has to wax poetic about the other particular blogger and promote a particular page or contest they are proud of or trying to garner attention. I mean hell the exposure alone on Skipah’s Realm will get my mother reading your blog or entering your contest and maybe a couple of others might join in, how about it sis?

Befriended a fellow blogger across the pond today as she actually trusts me to help her out in the world of self-hosting a blog. A year ago I had no idea what the hell I’m doing, today I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, but at least I look good trying I suppose. Rumor on the interwebs is she is the tallest women in the U.K., I can’t verify the authenticity of that but she writes about being a tall woman in a land of midgets to her and I was completely flattered she asked for my help. Another friend/blogger also informed me today that she wants to start a new blog because she sees how therapeutic it has been for me and how much I just enjoy sitting here every evening banging out whatever comes to mind. I have been told it’s called creative writing, there was a time I would have looked at you and asked if you were on dope referring to this as “creative” writing, but I guess it is what it is. Anyway she used to write in her spare time and my sad tales of custody woes, hamster spies, and the little ray of sunshine known has Sloane has inspired her to start writing again. What a difference a year makes, scared shitless and mind racing at 200 mph to an inspiration for someone to pick back up a passion of theirs and for someone else to seek my knowledge of a topic that I had no idea about at one time, I just hope I don’t let her down!

Thanks to the rain the allergen orgy party known as southern Indiana gave me some much needed relief in the allergy department today. Of course this will only piss the mold spores off more and I’m sure they are humping like rabbits right now and multiplying to make my life hell when the sun comes back out, but I’ll take a day of relief any way I can get it. Also had an interesting chat running back and forth today with someone I had never heard of, met, and frankly don’t care if I talk to her again.

It started off strangely enough as I got a Facebook friend request from someone I had never knew existed, a quick search of information I thought she was maybe a half-sister of mine so I friended her and she quickly messaged me and I soon found out I’m not related to her at all but my actual biological father raised her since she was an infant. She liked to call me her step half-brother, I’m hoping she has now given up that moniker. Since I’ve never heard of that worthless piece of shit raising anything but a middle finger to his eight-ten children (my sister and I are the second and third oldest), I quickly inquired if this women was insane or just smoking bath salts. As she was talking so eloquently about how he did this and that for her growing up, I quickly reminded her that the deadbeat owed over 90,000 in child support and I never saw him again after the age of eight. She was in shock about this and said he talked about me all the time in his last days on earth. By now I was getting a wee bit perturbed and trying not to hurt this woman’s feelings, but finally I just told her “I don’t want change your opinion of him but I didn’t care if they fed him to the sharks I never knew him and by the time he tried it was way too late”, she mentioned that I had tried to contact him near the end of his life and I coldly had to tell her that was only to verify his whereabouts since my sister still had a chance to claim some of the child support owed to her since her statute of limitations still had a little time left.

True story and you loyal reader you can judge me how you see fit, I called a number I had ran down for this worthless bastard nine years ago and hung up when the phone was answered (this was before I was an internet Jedi), I got an immediate call back from him asking if this was Gary. I said yes he started apologizing, I cut him off and told him if he ever contacted me again I would be on the next plane to Mobile, Alabama and would whip his ass for him. He died less than a month later, I hope that ultimate rejection put him over the edge. He didn’t deserve to know me, to the best of my knowledge he never did one thing for any of his biologicals until he met his last wife. I didn’t even take the three days of bereavement pay I had coming my way, too much of a conscious that I was letting my co-workers down and taking advantage of something that was meant for people that actually took off work to grieve. Like I told my new Facebook friend, I EARNED the right to say whatever I want about him you sought me ought not the other way around.

About it for tonight, not growing up with a father made me a bitter person at times and I’m man enough to own that. Now I have someone trying to strip away my chance to be a father, and good father at that, this fight/journey has made me find inner strength I didn’t know existed. I was on pins and needles June 26th, now I’m ready to take on the world come July 27th, and a man I never knew is what is driving me!

Ending your own life is selfish unfortunately I know that scar all to well, albeit much different reasons, a son growing up without a dad is actually a blessing if your biological is a piece of crap. Your a rock star father yourself by the way and even though you don’t like peanut butter your a pretty good guy yourself!

I feel your anger in this post, and rightly so.
There are usually two kinds of situations, one, parents made choices that hurt their children and they can be mended, or two, parents hurt their children repeatedly and are toxic and will never change — I’m all for working things out over time, but my own experiences have led me to get rid of the toxic people in my life, family no exception.
I think it’s wonderful that this person had such a different experience than you did, but I think it was thoughtless of her to tell you so much about it. Maybe he did change, or maybe he just played a role that made it seem like he had. Either way, you’re right, not the same guy you experienced and you don’t owe anyone an explanation.

Luckily for her I have no care in the world for the man, but don’t gush to me about what a great guy he was and expect me not to respond in kind. The man made ZERO effort in my formidable years to be a part of my life, and thank god he didn’t!